


Space

by aishahiwatari



Series: Trektober 2019 [23]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bearing Bad News, Different Postings AU, Kissing, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 21:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishahiwatari/pseuds/aishahiwatari
Summary: Leonard hadn’t expected this. Through their time at the Academy, Jim had always been the strong one. He’d been the one insisting they’d be good together, that they’d be fine. He’d been convinced that Leonard could work through his aviophobia and when everything in that vein failed, that they could both still be faithful, even with Leonard working at Academy Medical and Jim assigned to the Enterprise under Captain Pike.(for day 23 of Trektober 2019, prompt: Long distance relationship)





	Space

**Author's Note:**

> Not entirely happy with this one, but it's less than a minute to midnight and I need to post something today, so this will have to do!
> 
> Also I renamed because it's better now.

“It’ll be alright, Jim.”

Jim snorts. As well he might. This is quite the role reversal for them. “I know. I just-“ he stops himself from what looks like reflex, and then he reconsiders. “I’ve never had anybody to leave behind before. You’ll be alright, won’t you? I might not even be gone that long. You’re right, it’ll be fine.”

“Sounds like I didn’t need to say a damn thing,” Leonard smiles, or does his best. It might be more of a grimace but Jim’s just staring into his eyes, leaning in to cradle his cheek, just silently pleading with him for- something. It doesn’t matter what it is. He already has everything Leonard can give him. “You’d better get going. Enterprise’ll be waiting.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Jim whispers, in the moment before Leonard kisses him, soft and sweet. They’re stood in the middle of the hangar, surrounded by various cadets and crew rushing to their assigned stations, an island around which the chaos must move.

He hadn’t expected this. Through their time at the Academy, Jim had always been the strong one. He’d been the one insisting they’d be good together, that they’d be fine. He’d been convinced that Leonard could work through his aviophobia and when everything in that vein failed, that they could both still be faithful, even with Leonard working at Academy Medical and Jim assigned to the Enterprise under Captain Pike.

Long distance never works. Leonard knows that. But he’s damned well going to try, even as he has to cling to some professional decorum and only steal another brief kiss from the man he loves before he sends him up into the terrifying depths of space.

“Come back to me, Jim.”

They both know Jim can’t promise that. They hold on for just another moment, wrapped in each other’s arms, Leonard feeling Jim breathe, trying to memorise the way he feels against him so he can call upon that feeling during the long, lonely nights.

“I love you, Bones.”

Leonard is not going to cry, here. He’s not. He squeezes Jim tighter, for just a moment. “I love you too, darlin’. No matter what. Now go.”

Jim looks at him like it might be the last time he ever sees him, and Leonard is determined not to let on that he’s doing the same thing back. Stepping back, he stands tall, for all the world seeming like he hasn’t just had his heart ripped from his chest, and salutes. “Fly safe, Commander.”

He gets a form of salute back, in the raising of a single finger, and it does make him smile.

Jim stops, after taking a few steps towards the Enterprise shuttle, makes an exasperated sound and ducks back in for a final, hard kiss, to say, “Last chance to come with me. Bet I could sneak you on board. They’d never say no to having you in Med-Bay.”

Leonard wishes, like he has every time he’s seen those posting lists for the last month; every time he’s seen Jim’s gold uniform hanging in their closet; whenever he’s sat down with his therapist and tried to figure out the mess in his mind, that the very thought didn’t make his head spin.

“Worth a shot,” Jim says, with a sweet smile and a last brush of lips. And then he blinks away the tears in his eyes, sets his jaw, and strides away.

It’ll get easier, Leonard tells himself. 

He heads to medical to see if Phil will let him work a shift to take his mind off things. He knows what it’s like to be in love with one of those lunatics who can’t keep his feet on the ground. Maybe he’ll have some useful advice. Or at least some decent booze.

-

“Red Alert,” Pike says, and they arrive in the middle of a warzone. For Jim, everything slows down. He’s trained for this. He knows how everything works. His terminal comes to life under his hands, and he does everything he can to help, hyper-focused and intent on his task.

“Breach on deck six!”

The ship’s shifting beneath him but that’s not what makes him nearly miss the screen entirely with his next correction.

Deck six. Med-Bay.

Jim’s head spins. He feels sick. Nobody’s paying any attention to him, caught up in whatever’s happening on the main screen, so he brings up the feed and his vision nearly whites out. The whole deck’s torn apart, and when he scans for life signs-

Puri’s dead.

Jim can’t stand the thought of what he could have done, by bringing Bones up here with him. By trying to convince him to go against every gut feeling he ever had, telling him that he’d be better off on the Enterprise, with Jim. Jim would have killed him.

He needs to get away. He turns in his seat and Pike looks at him expectantly, as though he just volunteered for something.

Fuck it. If it gets him off the Bridge. He nods, and follows.

-

Jim knows that nobody else survived the attack on the fleet. He knows that Vulcan is gone, and there’s probably nobody on Earth who even realises.

Captain Pike is in a medically induced coma, but that’s about all the tatters of the Enterprise medical staff can do for him. Chapel’s in charge of Med-Bay, maybe a nurse but the best they’ve got. Jim vaguely remembers her from the Academy.

Scotty’s having no luck fixing the warp engine. It’ll take them four weeks to limp back to Earth.

Millions of people are dead.

Captain Pike may never wake up.

Jim has no idea whether he’s being selfish or sensitive or just punishing himself when he calls Starfleet Academy Medical first. Phil Boyce is listed as Captain Pike’s next of kin, and he deserves to know.

“Academy Medical.”

Jim wonders if it’s possible for someone’s heart to spontaneously implode with the sheer impact of unconsidered possibility. For a moment he can’t say a word. He’s glad it’s just an audio link. He’s sure he looks terrible. Sulu turns around to eye him, concerned and expectant.

“Hey, Bones.”

“Jim?”

God, Bones sounds broken, absolutely shattered open. Like he never expected to be having this conversation. And Jim did that to him. He’s the worst boyfriend, but they have time. Bones is alive, safe, on Earth, and Jim’s coming back to him mostly in one piece, just like he couldn’t quite promise.

“Yeah, it’s me. I love you, okay, but I need you to do something for me.”

“I- sure, what?”

“I need you to find Phil Boyce and put him on the line for me.”

“He’s right here, Jim. What do you want to say?”

Jim’s rehearsed it countless times. In his head. Out loud. He still sounds strangled when he says, “We were attacked by a rogue Romulan ship. Cap- Chris gave himself up to give us a chance, and we got him back, but it’s not looking good. He’s in a coma. We have- no doctors and two nurses. No warp drive. It’ll take us four weeks to get back, at least. I don’t know if he’ll make it. I’m sorry. I- you have no idea how sorry I am.”

Phil was CMO on the Enterprise for years. He’s seen things most people can’t even imagine, survived countless horrifying scenarios, is without a doubt the strongest person Leonard has ever met.

But at that he breaks down, and Leonard has to end the call to comfort him. It would be ridiculous to demand Jim stay on the line, to tell him what the fuck is going on, why the entire fleet lost contact for days, when Leonard knows he’s alive and well. And he can’t shake the feeling that this could be his last chance, as always, to share a moment with the man he loves.

He pushes it down, though, because this is a mess and if he had just received that news, that Jim was injured and there was no way for Leonard to save him because he’d been unwilling to go up on that damn ship-

Well, he’d need comforting, too.

-

Jim’s among the first to beam down. He’d had a lot of arguments with Spock over the weeks it had taken them to travel back to Earth, but in the end, Spock needed to be with his family, with the few survivors from Vulcan. And so Jim is the best -most logical- person to send with Captain Pike, to meet the medical team that awaits him, to formerly hand over his care. That part, he mostly lets Chapel do, too busy blinking away the tears in his eyes at the sight of Bones taking confident control of the situation.

They manage a brief kiss and short but intense eye contact for maybe a second before Bones rushes off to prep for surgery.

Jim plans to watch, even though it will take hours, but is diverted when he is literally hauled away by his shirt collar for a proper medical checkup which he’s obviously been avoiding for the duration of his long journey back because he’s the same kind of foolhardy moron that all starship Captains are when they don’t have an overworked CMO to put them in their place.

Phil’s words, not his.

They make Jim smile, which threatens to make Phil cry, and once Jim has been given the all-clear, they watch the feed from the operating theatre and drink eighteen cups of coffee, and then Jim gets his shoulder under Phil’s arm and drags him off to bed before he collapses right where he stands.

And then he finds Bones’ quarters, just about managed to strip out of his uniform and curls up in the bed, breathing in the scent of Bones’ shampoo on the pillow and his body wash on the sheets until he feels safe enough to sleep.

Bones crawls in beside him hours later with the words, “He’s stable.” And then he wraps around Jim like a particularly neglected octopus until they both fall asleep again.

-

When they’re both a little more coherent, when they’ve awoken and showered and kissed and slowly, painstakingly made love until they both cried a little, they lay in bed, just staring at each other.

Jim says, “I’ll stay here with you.“

At exactly the same moment Bones says, “You’re not going up there without me again.”

“You- what?” they both say, in very different tones of voice.

“You can’t stay here, Jim. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“And what about you? I’m not leaving you again.”

“Of course you’re not. I’m coming with you.”

“I heard they’d hit Med-Bay and- God, Bones, I never want to feel like that again. I can’t take it.”

“Maybe I would have been fine. Maybe I could have helped. I’ve been- having more damned therapy than I know what to do with. I’ll apply for the posting on the Enterprise, soon as they put them out. Not like they can turn me down, with half the fleet-“ Bones stops, then, expression crumpling as he remembers Jim was there, restarts again. “I’m coming with you, damnit. No way I’m letting you stay down here and drive yourself crazy and slowly come to resent me for it.”

-

Turns out it doesn’t matter, right away. Jim can’t go anywhere near the damn ship without having a panic attack himself, after all he lost up there.

Bones gets him through it.

Then, and during all the missions after that.

**Author's Note:**

> I mean if you think about it, a somewhat more injured Chris Pike means he wouldn't have been reinstated in Into Darkness, and therefore he probably lived much longer... 
> 
> I’m also on [Tumblr](https://aishahiwatari.tumblr.com/)


End file.
